Bradrobster & Deb - Aruba 2022! June 14 - 24th

[Andrea J.]

reservation in Hell

There is a special place in you know where for men (and women ) who are abusive. Safe travels home and thanks for the great reports!

[brady bear]

Thank you so much for sharing your vacation. Saddens me that people who can not control their drinking (can not stand abuse. been there with my 1st husband.. never ever again !!)

[bradrobster]

June 24^th, Friday – Travel Home Day


Sad day. Got up and started the coffee, showers and finished packing. We left Ocean Club around 9:45am and headed towards the Hilton so we could park there, walk through it and go to Bugaloe for a farewell breakfast. It was tough, we went back and forth between there and Diana’s pancake house. We ended up wanting something like a normal breakfast rather than a large pancake. We agreed we need to do that in the middle of the week next time.


Breakfast was great as usual at Bugaloe. I had the American and Deb had the steak breakfast tacos she loves so much with a couple of Mimosa’s. Headed to the airport and return the rental car to Hertz. Uneventful car return and lines even with the new codes on Friday was not that bad. Check-in was easy, we had the usual wait outside to get into Aruba Customs. It’s kind of sad that we had progressed to using the automated passport machines but now we are back to in person passport review at customs.


That was pretty quick, we went down through the duty-free area/food court. We didn’t see the Gouda variety packs like we had in the past, so we passed on grabbing some. We had to go to our Global Entry interviews. That was simple, grabbed our bags and you go towards US customs and over to the far right is the Global Entry Line. When we told them we were there for our interviews. They still asked us the normal questions and then we went to sit in a small office. There were about 3 people in front of us and it took longer than we thought. It was at least 30+min before they got to Deb and I. They came out, asked for our passports and we waited. About 10 min later, he came out to get us. Asked us a few questions and took our fingerprints. They told us we should get approval status in the online dashboard within 24 hours. You will get an email that says there has been a “change” to your status in the dashboard, so you still must log back in. Once approved (we got ours late on Saturday, 24 hours aver we left), you get your new number. So, for us, we renewed our Pre-Check a year ago. Since Global Entry also includes pre-check, our “timeline” starts over. This is good so we now have a full five-year timeline that renews on your birthday. You can start renewal one year out. I have business travel to India in July so getting this was important to me.


We were lucky with our flights back to Charlotte from Aruba and ultimately back to Raleigh. All on time, smooth, luggage made it. Blessed compared to many that are struggling with summer travel.


Charlotte Airport was disappointing, overcrowded, dirty, bathrooms not clean. It was just a disappointing experience for the largest airport in our state. They need to quit crying about not having staff. Pay them more! They sure are charging more for every aspect of the trip, food, etc. They should be paying more to have adequate staff. It took 45 min to get Bojangles chicken sandwiches for a quick dinner and the entire food court was dirty, no one had cleaned tables or emptied trash.


Made it back to Raleigh on time, Uber home and we are good. Many thanks and appreciation to all who have followed our trip. Hopefully we will do it again next year!

[Andrea J.]

Glad that you made it home uneventfully!
It is too bad that Charlotte airport was so awful.
So many people pass thru and it leaves such a poor impression.

It was nice meeting you Brad, and tell Deb "next time we will see her as well"

Again, thanks

[robin]

Thank you for sticking up for the wife. I think the most abusive people are those who really are unhappy with themselves.

Thank you for the wonderful trip reports.

Charlotte is one airport we try to avoid. We have rarely had a good experience there.

[Colette M]

Thanks again for taking us with you! Your reports were wonderful. Sounds like you had a great time and even made the most of your last day with breakfast at Bugaloe! Very nice! Enjoy the memories!